Free Frag Box by Richard A. Thompson Page A

teenager, but she had an air of quiet sorrow and dignity about her that made her look much older. She was pushing a baby stroller. Her friend was bigger, and there was nothing either pretty or quiet about her. She was also pushing a stroller, walking with something between a waddle and a swagger, gesturing wildly, and running her mouth non-stop. Since they were going in my direction, I fell in about ten paces behind them. But I could have heard the big one from a block away.
    “So I says to her, ‘What you trippin’ on me about, bitch? Cramped chickenhead like you ain’t got no call to be dissin’ me. Shit, you ain’t even got no call to live.’ An’ she couldn’t think of nothin’ to say to that . Humph!”
    She looked over at the small woman with a flash of triumph in her eyes. But the other one made no reply of any kind. She simply continued to look down and push her stroller at a slow, deliberate pace.
    Getting no reaction, the big one decided to try again, with a slightly amped-up script.
    “So I says to her, ‘You better back off, bitch. You think you so phat, but I munna take you…’”
    I decided that ten paces hadn’t been nearly far enough. I stopped and took out a cigarette that I didn’t really want and took my time lighting it, as if I couldn’t concentrate on such a complicated task and walk at the same time. The stroller pushers were going awfully slowly, but I was determined to stall around long enough to let them get at least a half a block ahead of me.
    That was when I spotted the first one.
    Across the street and a little behind me, a tallish, nondescript guy in a dark nylon windbreaker and a mad bomber hat was suddenly taking a great interest in a storefront window. Innocuous enough, except the particular glass he was looking into belonged to a store that had been out of business for some three or four years. Now the place was used to store furniture that had never been taken out of its shipping cartons.
    If they were running a classic box, Mr. Windbreaker’s partner would be on my side of the street, maybe a half a block back. I looked back that way and saw a medium-height man in a crumpled raincoat walking away from me. He hadn’t come out of Lefty’s, or I would have noticed him there. And there weren’t any other businesses in that block. Cougar number two. Three and four would be another half a block back.
    I stayed where I was and smoked for a while, making no attempt to hide the fact that I was looking at the guy across the street. He kept his back to me, facing the glass, hands in pockets, pretending to be interested in the unremarkable display of boxes and dust. When I turned and headed east, back toward Lefty’s, he seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he, too, headed east. Ten seconds later, I looked at my watch, put on a phony expression of dismay, and did an abrupt one-eighty, once again heading west.
    My man on the other side of the street suddenly had an overwhelming need to make a call on his cell phone. I thought I could pretty well imagine the content.
    I think I might have been made.
    Then you have been, idiot. Get out of there .
    Of course, it was also possible that I was supposed to make him. They might let me have a glimpse of the scrubs, just so I wouldn’t look too hard for the A-squad. That’s assuming that I was worth a multiple-person surveillance team in the first place. If so, then my stock had gone up dramatically since I became the heir to a phantom estate and a cardboard box in some unknown location, a box that might have also been a frag pot.
    I suppose I should have been flattered. I hadn’t been the subject of that kind of interest since my Uncle Fred was being investigated by the feds for some trumped-up RICO charge. I was one of his collectors back then, so I got watched a lot by shadows that were ludicrously easy to spot. Back then, the FBI agents, even when they were working undercover, were strictly required to be clean shaven and wear a coat